Majority of Americans back stricter gun laws

Washington: Majority of Americans support stricter gun control laws in the country after the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting in which 20 kids and 6 adults were killed, a new poll has found.

As the president outlined sweeping new proposals aimed to reduce gun violence, the CBS News/New York Times Poll found that Americans back the central components of the president``s proposals, including background checks, a national gun sale database, limits on high capacity magazines and a ban on semi-automatic weapons.

Asked if they generally back stricter gun laws, more than half of respondents, 54 percent, support stricter gun laws.

Nearly 53 percent said that it would deter gun violence, CBS News reports.

That is a jump from April, before the Newtown and Aurora shootings, when only 39 percent backed stricter gun laws but about the same as 10 years ago.

The poll found that not all respondents, however, backed stricter gun laws.

The idea is more popular among Democrats and a slight majority of independents, while only 31 percent of Republicans back stricter limits on guns.

The ideological split is similar to the split among gun ownership. While 74 percent of people who don`t keep guns in the house back stricter gun laws, 36 percent of gun owning households do and 26 percent of gun owners, the report added.